Momentum
by Galexz
Summary: * Formerly "Forward"* Shepard saved the galaxy by taking control of the Reapers, but she lost something precious in the process: her memories. Some things though, are so ingrained that they can never really be taken away. This is the story of Jane Shepard finding her way back to the world. Post-Blue ending. A Kmeme prompt. Femshep/Garrus.
1. Forward

**Author's Note: **This story was written for the Mass Effect Kink meme. I took some (a massive amount) of liberties with the prompt, but I think the end result was still fun. I really enjoied writing this and the style is pretty far out of my usual area, so it was a fun challenge. If the OP is on here, than I want to thank him/her again for the wonderful prompt. This is the first in what I affectionately call the "Momentum" series and I've got some additions/edits that I want to do on the others before I publish them here.

**The Prompt:**"_I'd like to see a post-ME3 amnesia story where Shepard chooses the Control/"Blue" ending. Shepard's consciousness is uploaded to the Crucible, but instead of Shepard's body being destroyed in the process, only Shepard's post-Alliance enlistment memories are absorbed. Basically Shepard's memories are strong enough to effect the Reaper's consensus. Later (weeks? months? years?) Shepard regains consciousness with the appropriate lack of memories."_

**Disclaimer:** All characters belong to Bioware. I'm just borrowing them.

* * *

Each step hurt. Each breath was a monumental task.

"_You have a choice."_

Forward. There was nothing but forward. An Instinctual and thoughtless movement; just one foot in foot in front of the other.

"_Destruction…_

Bodies littered the floor. Lights flashed in the hallway. Tripping over an arm, her face fell next to another's. Lifeless eyes stared back at her. She should scream, but there was nothing – no terror, no repulsion, **nothing**.

Pushing up off the floor with a grunt, she got to her knees, her back hunched as the chain around her neck caught on a fallen beam. Ripping the silver tags from around her neck, she stood.

The dog tags lay on the floor, tossed aside and forgotten. But she, filled with emptiness, moved forward.

"…_Or control."_

* * *

_Blue._

_Sweet. She licked her lips, enjoying the lingering taste._

_Warmth. Strength._

_"Let it come to you, like a target falling into scope."_

"Jane!" She blinked, standing straighter and glanced over her shoulder. Her right cheek tingle from where she had been leaning it against her shovel.

"Daydreaming again?" Luke Riggins asked. He headed up their small crew clearing out the rubble. They salvaged anything they could find, but most of what they found deserved to be buried or burnt.

Earth was a mess, but it could always be rebuilt. A few Reapers couldn't break the resolve and tenacity of the human spirit. At least that is what she had been told.

Jane nodded softly at Luke. He was a good man, an attractive man with beautiful eyes. She loved his eyes. They were blue.

"Anything useful?"

_A rough tongue on her neck. Moaning._

"No." She said, leaning her cheek back on her the hilt of the shovel. His eyes were beautiful, but still so soft.

He shoved her playfully, "Then get back to work."

Right. Work. A monotonous rebuilding of a city she had never been to, of a planet she had never seen. Earth had been a story told to her a night by her parents – tall buildings, thousands of people and a civilization that spanned the stars.

Now there was only dust and bodies; nothing glorious save for humanity's ability to keep smiling. That was during the day though, a night she could hear the nightmares come for them, screams in the darkness searching for those they had lost.

The sun would set soon, and Jane hated the screams, but she hated the darkness more. The sable cloak splattered with stars and a weight that choked her from the inside out, stealing her breath with ice-tipped fingers.

_Black. It was always black - wasn't there supposed to be a white light or something?_

_"Commander!"_

_Explosions. Shit, suit rupture. Hissing and then silence._

Pressing the shovel into the rubble, Jane shook off the heavy weight of her dreams. Her last memory before the war had been of Mindoir and looking up at the warm sun. Perhaps when they fixed the mass relays she would go back to there, or perhaps, she would try to find those intense blue eyes.

* * *

The camps at night were mostly silent. Everyone lost to their own demons, only escaping around the fires with flasks full of moonshine whiskey.

It had been months since the Reapers left and buildings were beginning to look like buildings and streets like streets, but still things mostly looked like pitched tents and a struggle to survive.

She dumped her day's salvage by the storage tent nodding at the soldiers and civilians trying to organize and repair their meager supplies. Pausing, Jane ran her hand over the barrel of a heavy pistol.

_Bullets flew past her head, but she couldn't be damned to try to dodge. Just run, move forward. The platforms fell away and she leapt, hands reaching and hoping to latch on to something, anything. A woosh of air left her lungs as she hit the side of the ship, the ping of impacts next to her as the projectiles hit the metal siding. A hand grabbed her roughly and pulled her onto the ship. _

_She couldn't stop her smile and the euphoric rush of adrenaline. They had made it. _

"Something I can help you with?"

Jane blinked, looking at the solider cleaning the trigger mechanism of the pistol. She held the barrel in her hand, but put it down quickly and left the tent.

Grabbing a bowel of soup from the mess tent she climbed away from the fires to the second floor of a broken down building. She could see the whole camp from here, fires burning, people moving, but she was just beyond the light. Hidden in the shadows that still sent a shiver down her spine, but with her back to the wall and all visible exits covered she felt safe. From here she could look down, but she never looked up.

"Hey," Luke said, sitting next to her. Jane didn't jump; she had seen him coming a mile away. Luke liked her, smiled at her, played with her hair, but she…

_His voice resonated with different harmonics. It was different, but not unwelcomed._

She wanted something else, someone else. His smile was wrong, his hands through her hair were wrong and he didn't know why she came up here. She tried to explain it to him, but he laughed at her and she hated to be laughed at.

He reached up to touch her hair, and she didn't stop him, because as wrong as it felt, she could almost feel the touch of another – a ghost of a feeling and she relished it.

* * *

A year and a half after the Reapers retreated, the Sol relay was rebuilt and civilians were allowed to take transports to other locations. It was expensive and hard to get a spot on a ship, but Jane had managed it. She had always been good at sweet-talking her way to get what she wanted.

The ship was heading towards the Citadel – one of the only other relays currently up. The station apparently had been broken, but most of it had been salvageable and many races pooled together to rebuild it as a sign of hope for the galaxy. It wasn't her final destination, but Jane had to get off Earth and from there…

She had no idea.

Stepping off onto the small ship onto the alien space station, Jane felt almost at peace for the first time since waking up in the ramshackle hospital. She had no real place to go, but finally, she could move forward.

Her feet stepped with a will of their own, winding through halls and up elevators as if they knew the path they needed to walk. She lost herself in the faint memory of sights and smells until she finally stopped, staring out at the ships as they flew through space.

A freedom that she loved, that she could now obtain.

Turning she tripped, and cursed softly as the blood rushed to her knees. That would leave a mark. A three fingered hand appeared in front of her vision, and without thinking she took it.

Standing, and still holding the warm appendage, Jane looked up and inhaled sharply.

"Shepard?" A duel toned voice asked causing a heat in the pit of her stomach and a delicious shiver down to her toes.

Her lips curled and all she could think of was how blue his eyes were.


	2. Stationary

**Author's Note**: It's been a while since I wrote this. I mean to upload it earlier, but got caught up with other stories. Instead of posting each story individually, I decided to post them all as a single story. They all take place in the same universe, but different times. I hope this doesn't confuse anyone. Anyways, I'll post the rest in the following days once I fix the massive amounts of typos (and if I can catch them) gramatical errors.

Thanks to everyone who read the first short story! I hope you like the continuation as well.

**Disclaimer**: Bioware owns everything. I am just a poor Master's student.

* * *

It was strange to awaken yet feel nothing. No confusion, no relief, no terror, not even resignation. Just nothing.

Her eyes took in everything, understanding little, but absorbing the new sights like they were old. Her ears understood all that was said to her, but her mind comprehended only a few words. She had been found on the Citadel alive, but barely.

Slowly, as if waking from a dream, the fog lifted and she remembered.

_Green grass. Warm breeze. Late for class._

_She didn't care. The sun was warm on her face and that was more pleasant than listening to the teacher drone on about the history of Earth._

Mindoir. Her parents - both dead, and she finally old enough to join the Alliance.

So how did she get here?

Why wasn't she scared?

Pieces came back slowly. Her mother's brown hair. Her father's deep laugh. Birthdays and holidays, but it was the 'afterwards', the 'what happened next', that was hard to grasp. She remembered the slavers though. Why couldn't that have been taken? Her mind told her she was 18, but the woman staring back at her was a far cry from youthful and innocent.

Hardened with age and experience, a body covered in scars and stories, accentuating the void that ate away at her. There was a wall, heavy and impenetrable as anything physical, but she could feel the weight of the world behind it even as it skirted from her touch.

The memories were there, just out of reach because, when she stopped looking for them, they flowed; a scent here, a touch there, but they meant little more to her than a feeling. So, much to the doctor's displeasure, she stopped trying.

The dreams were the most intense, but she could never grasp more than a flash of them when she awoke. They left her breathless and empty and Jane came to fear the night. She came to fear the person she had become.

For days Jane fought off sleep, but in those delirious times when her body rebelled she could feel the soft touch of a hard hand, alien and familiar with calluses like hers.

* * *

"Any change?" The doctor asked the nurse none too quietly in the background. Jane chose to ignore her. Change? Yes, there had been a change. The world burnt to the ground when she hadn't been looking.

Dust still clouded the air, filling her lungs with each breath and blocking out the sun. Even at midday the world was cast in shadow, muted and unreal. The pale light, struggling to break through created a softness to the harsh reality of the crippled planet.

Earth, even broken as it was still stood proud. The news reports that filled the air rising out of the old school radios and soldier's omni-tools talked about how a human united a galaxy. A single woman, who had been lost in the fighting, rose up against an indomitable force when no one else would. Commander Jane Shepard of the Alliance Navy was a goddamned war hero. It made Jane shiver - they had the same name, but she wasn't going to tell anyone that. She didn't want to build up their hopes.

"She still won't say a word." The nurse said, her voice heavy in the stillness of the morning.

What is there to say? Jane wanted to yell, scream, cry, but it was pointless. This was not Mindoir, clearly, and she was not a child. A lesser woman would have broken down but, Jane ran a hand over newest scars that lined her stomach, she was not such a woman. A weak woman couldn't have scars like these. A weak woman would have died from wounds like these.

"What should we do with her?" The nurse continued, "She barely eats, refuses to sleep and won't talk to the psychiatrist."

The doctor had nothing to say.

* * *

Eventually Jane left the hospital tent, still silent, still watching and waiting. No one was coming for her, but still she waited. The moments between waking and sleeping were her only tether to reality. Tenuous at best, those brief moments of completion kept her sane in a world of chaos.

She was assigned to a clean up crew because those without homes or skills had nothing else to do. In a world without currency, they didn't get paid but received food and shelter. So she worked, from dawn to dusk, waiting for the wraiths to visit her in the night. Even though they left her shaking in terror and grasping her cot, the moments before they took her were blissful.

As she walked numbly through the rubble, Jane paused as the light brightened. Looking up she saw blue skies for the first time. The dust was beginning to settle and move out of the upper atmosphere.

Her eyes went out of focus. Her fingers lost their grip on the pail she carried. Her body shook from the force of emotion that coursed through her.

_Blue skies. A beach. A woman and a man. _

_A bomb. A choice._

_"I was ready to die Skipper!"_

_"So was he Ash."_

The breath was forced from her lungs. Tears flowed from her eyes; tears of sorrow and tears of joy.

A memory and a feeling, as clear as the sunlight streaming through the small break in the clouds. For a single moment, the gaping void was filled to the point of overflowing and Jane felt more than phantom feelings and half grasped hallucinations.

The nothingness ebbed away for a heartbeat and as Jane stared at that patch of bright blue sky, she realized how much she loved the color blue.

The clouds rolled on, the light dimmed and Jane picked up her pale full of debris. The world returned to its hazy state, but she had changed.

Jane stood taller, ready to move forward and face the hardened woman she saw in the mirror.


	3. Spinning

**AN:** Hey guys! Next installment is here. Thanks for all the follows and favorites! They mean a lot to me. I hope you enjoy this next bit. It's short, but one of my favorites.

**Disclaimer**: Bioware owns everything

* * *

Jane Shepard. Alive and here, on the Citadel.

Garrus' head was spinning with the sight of her, the smell of her, the feel of her. Sensations that he believed lost to him forever. Dreams that he had given up when they had presented him with her bloodied dog tags. The dark crimson still clung defiantly to the stainless steel as it hung around his neck, nestled in his cowl. Part of him had wanted to clean it so he could read the words "Commander Jane Shepard, Alliance Military" but he couldn't bring himself to do so. The blood was proof that she had left this world, that he shouldn't hope, and yet here she was with wide eyes and a shy smile.

Did she even know what she did to him?

Without thinking he pulled her to him, crushing her without remorse against his armor. She squeaked, but her arms circled his waist nonetheless and her fingers intertwined as her hands clasped each other. It was a small gesture, but so uniquely hers that it solidified the reality before him.

Thoughts, questions, dreams and demands all swirled in his brain demanding to be released, but the conflict was so overpowering that no words came out, only a small growl of possession and restitution.

_"You'll never be alone._"

Damn right. She wasn't even going to leave the safe haven of his arms ever again. The last year had proven to him, just as the two after her first 'death' that he would survive and fight on, but it wasn't living. At least, not by the standards that he had become so accustomed to.

Feeling her pull back, he allowed a small space between them, still marveling at her ability to survive. Was she secretly part cockroach? Scratch that. That line of thought should never be allowed to go to fruition, or be voiced. Ever.

She looked hesitant as her hands came to rest on his chest. The furrow of her brow and the way she bit her lip hadn't changed, but he had never seen it directed at him. Was she scared he was angry?

"Hi." Her voice was soft, like it was in the dim light of the night cycle.

"Hi." He responded, unable to keep the low purr from his voice.

Her pupils dilated and her face relaxed. Garrus blinked in surprise as his head tilted. This was new.

"Shepard?" He queried again, "You alright?"

She blinked rapidly and her eyes focused on his. She looked at him like she had never seen him before. Her fingers began to travel the creases in his armor, lips open and closed as she tried to form words, and her eyes roamed over his face.

"No. Yes. Maybe. I KNOW you."

He was confused, but he couldn't help but chuckle softly at the ridiculous nature of the statement, "I should hope so."

"And you know me."

Yes, he did.

His hands ran up her back and down again, resting on her hips and rubbing small circles with his thumb. Slowly, her eyes closed and he felt her shiver. Her lips parted and she gasped softly at the gentle and possessive movement.

An announcement over the Citadel speakers snapped her awake and she pushed him hard against his chest.

"Wait. Just wait."

"Shep-" She held up her hand signaling silence. Not a flat palm, but the military signal to hold position.

"I need to know. You need to tell me. Who am I?" The second the question was out of her mouth she seemed startled, "Wait, no. That's not right. I know WHO I am, but not who I am NOW." She ran her hands through her hair aggravated and Garrus watched her, confusion escalating into a mild hysteria, "That came out wrong."

He grabbed her hands and leaned forward to look her in the eyes, blue and emerald clashed and emotions swirled between them. In her green depths he could see Shepard, but there was something else, something younger and terrified. A similar emotion swelled within him, a concern that he hadn't even felt when she raced across the bridge in Omega with guns blazing.

She was his Shepard, something that could never be copied or faked and yet she was...incomplete.

"Slow down." His voice shook against his will, "What's the last thing you remember?"

"Clearly?"

"Clearly."

"Mindoir."

Ah. There was that spinning sensation again.


	4. Grounded

**Author's Note: **I've been meaning to finish this. It's been a long time coming (almost a year since I first wrote 'Foward') That just goes to show how productive I am. Sheesh. I've been caught up in some of my other stories on the kinkmeme but wanted to get this one finally completed. For those of you who read this first on the kinkmeme you'll notice I added to it. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed reading it.

PS: Anyone know and totally awesome betas? The list on is so long I don't even know where to start...

**Disclaimer**: Bioware owns everything.

* * *

There were good days.

"Tell me again." Jane asked. Her mind was wandering again through the masses of faces and voices that danced along the edge of her subconscious.

Garrus chuckled softly, his talons running over her calf where the pants had ridden up. Jane shrugged and adjusted the pillow under her head. The hard floor under her back helped the pain in her shoulder - a wound from the Collectors apparently. She loved that he knew where she had got her scars. She hated that she didn't.

Prodding him softly with her foot he laughed louder and pulled her towards him. It was an awkward position - him on the couch holding her legs and her on the floor - but she loved it. It was her thinking position since she was a child.

Did she still even do it?

"Which part?" He asked, indulging her like always.

"Wrex. Did he really headbutt that salarian SGT operative?"

"Of course. Though Bakara probably wouldn't let him now."

Jane smiled and closed her eyes, "Can we go to Tuchanka?"

"When?"

"Tomorrow."

Garrus hummed thoughtfully, "Tomorrow's no good. How about next week?"

"Perfect," She said, her mind drifting to the krogans. She could almost recollect faces and times at will, but it was challenging. Like trying to remember a drunken night the morning after.

"Just don't blame me when you come back with a few krogan babies."

* * *

There were great days.

"Ugh," Garrus said as he walked into the apartment. It was a small place, but it was theirs. Garrus had been offered one in the Presidium, but they both prefered the Wards. There was life on the Wards. It was something they both wanted to embrace, not shy away from.

Jane perked up, glancing back over her shoulder and away from her datapad "What's the problem?"

"Paperwork. The Primarch. Councilor Septimus. Pick one."

Jane laughed and he rumbled in appreciation. She knew he loved her laugh and she loved his...everything. The way he growled, hummed, purred. They all resonated deep in her chest and reminded her of the now.

"Septimus is such an ass."

Garrus stopped and padded over to her, looking at her cautiously.

"What makes you say that."

She shot him a look. It was the look that said 'I know you're worried but I'm fine.' She remembered the turian clearly. There were no half hearted visions when she tried to remember him, just the desire to punch him in the face.

Perhaps she had at one point.

No. Probably not. Too bad.

"The way he scowled, the perfectly annoyed tone he took whenever talking to me and ah yes, his 'personality'." She punctuated her statement with air quotes.

The way he laughed, his whole body lighting up, made all of his annoyance just vanish.

* * *

There were bad days.

_Blue._

_Not the bright blue of his eyes. Dark, angry blue. Deep and wet and unending._

_It was all over him. All over her. _

_Why wouldn't it stop?_

"Shepard!" He cried, pulling her back to the world of now. Her eyes darted to her hands clasped tightly in were wet with sweat but nothing else. Slowly she drew her eyes back up to his, willing her heart to slow.

What had triggered that?

They had been together, intimately together and then she had reached up and touched his scars. His _scars_.

"_Chakwas has done all she could but.."_

_But what?_

_Her heart sank, empty and hollow. No one left to trust. Alone._

_Left in her skin that wasn't her skin. In a body that wasn't her body._

"Stop it." His hands were now on her face, "Whatever you're thinking about. Just stop it. Take a breath." He stared at her until she complied. Slowly she dragged one shaky breath past her lips. Then another.

"Now tell me what you saw."

They would work through this. Together.

* * *

There were worse days.

Garrus had to go on a mission back to Palaven for the Primarch. That had been three days ago. Some part of her had wanted to go out, to search so she had, never one to be intimidated by the unknown.

She walked the Presidium, her mind lingering on something. It ate at her, just like it always did before, but it this was darker, eating away at the edge of her vision.

Pausing she glanced back at the fountin. In the center was a sculpture.

No. Not just a sculpture.

_They needed a path_

_Colossus. Ten, maybe twenty of them._

"_There's too many"_

_She punched the throttle and then they were through. Flying and crashing but alive._

_They needed a path._

_Geth. Hordes of them. Their mechanical speech closing in on them._

_She pulled out the rocket launcher and they were through._

Shepard blinked, staring at the mass relay sculpture. She wasn't ready for this one. Where this would lead. She turned and ran back the way she had come.

_Running, but never fast enough. His eyes glowed eerily as they opened the arms._

_Sovereign was coming. _

_They collided. LIke oil and water, always pushing each other away._

"_You can't stop it Shepard."_

"_Just watch me."_

_Two shots to the head and one more for good measure._

_Sovereign was still coming._

Out of breath she collapsed to the ground. Her breath gone, her legs numb. The night cycle was closing in and Shepard didn't know where she was. She had run past the elevator to the Wards.

Slowly she got to her feet, glad for the strangers and glad for the new environment. It meant she would be safe for the moment. Safe from the growing shadow in her mind.

* * *

But as with all healing processes, it got better. The good days outnumbered the bad and she got stronger. She remembered more, the details slowly returning one by one.

* * *

Garrus growled, stared at the datapad, paced and growled again.

The Alliance wanted her back. Wanted a report. On what though? Over the last month she had barely been able to put names to faces.

They still overwhelmed her - striking in the pauses between conversations. Transporting her to a broken world that shook her to the core with every trip.

"How did they even know?" He grumbled sitting on the edge of the bed. Jane picked up the orange glass and placed it on the table. She knew how they found out about her miraculous survival - she told them.

She had left Earth for one reason - to find herself and she had found more than that. She had found Garrus. He had given her all of himself and all of her. It was more than she had hoped for. More than she had dreamed.

No, that was a lie. She kneeled and looked into his eyes - angry and bright - it was exactly what she had dreamed.

Spending hours curled together he told her everything he remembered and she told him of every small shard she recalled. They pieced together moments bit by bit until she had a vague recollection of the last fourteen years.

She was Commander Jane Shepard, _the_ war hero. The Alliance deserved to know she was alive at least.

Standing, she let her hands run over his shoulders and curl under his cowl, "It will be fine Garrus."

"Fine?" His anger reverberated in his chest and traveled like lighting up her arms. An anger she had seen before. That she had tempered. "How will it be fine? You're missing almost half your life! What do they expect you to tell them? What will they do if you don't have the answers they want?"

"My memories are fragmented," Her breath ghosted across his neck, heavy and moist, "And most of what I have are sensations," She put his hands on her hips, running their entwined fingers up her ribs, "Smells, touches, sounds. Nothing too concrete. Nothing that I can really report, but also something that can never be taken from me. There is so much darkness, but I remember this."

And she did.

Everything had been gone, but he lingered. A touch too strong to be forgotten. A heat burned into her memory. A smell so sweet that it stayed with her. No, even without anything else, she would always remember this.

_A calloused pad tracing over her scars. Shivering in the moonlight._

_A laugh. "That tickles."_

_"Not exactly what I was going for." His voice lower than usual._

_Perhaps not, but she loved it._

A sharp push and he was on the bed. Her fingers traveled over familiar planes and her eyes dilated with pleasure. The sharp twist and turns of his torso were an old friend to which her touch was happy to be reacquainted with.

"_Never seen a turian naked before," _

_Broken lines in the light of the tank. Silvery and hard, but softer than expected. Pliant when she pushed. He purred happily._

"_I like it."_

His hands weren't idle. They moved across the soft curves of her hips and she hummed slightly at the pressure. She pressed them further into her skin. She was here and she wasn't leaving. He needed to understand that. This was her home. This was her haven.

During her time on Earth she had come here, unwittingly and unconsciously. Needing him to make her whole. When her mind drifted it came here, resting in his every detail.

_"There is no Shepard without Vakarian."_

She rose over him, settling and rising again. The ebb and flow of the sensations as they crashed through her were ground into her memory. The silence of the room was broken by soft whispers and shuddering breaths. Like a mantra, the words flowed from her lips, "I remember this." She loved the sounds he made as they moved together, soft and private. A purr, a rumble, a growl; the quietness of it all during the war, like a berth for a ship in a stormy sea.

Here there was heat that she had missed - his damp breath against her neck hiking with every thrust, the warmth of him filling her core, the exertion of the agonizingly slow pace she demanded of him. She fell deeper into the memories as he built new ones, drawing each out and expanding on them.

The mantra faded as she approached her climax, the words no more than a movement of her lips against the sensitive skin of his neck. In the stillness left by her silence, his flanged voice filled the air, taking over her words and driving her over the edge with a quivering breath. Even her muscles weak from exertion, she rode him to completion until he was shaking with her.

* * *

They talked again when he was calm.

He relented and she promised.

Of course she would come back. Without him she was like electricity, erratically jumping from place to place. He kept her grounded. He kept her sane.

"I think it should go right here," Garrus mumbled, his hands traveling over her left buttcheek.

Jane raised an eyebrow but didn't open her eyes. It was too early. She was too tired. The dreams of the night still lingered and she had to remind herself of what was real.

"What?"

"The tattoo that says 'Property of Garrus Vakarian'. That way the Alliance knows where to return you when they're done," Her hand darted out to swat his away with indigent determination. He laughed, "What? You do have a history of going off with the Alliance and getting lost. Perhaps I should add - 'Reward' at the bottom as extra incentive."

She flipped over, her lips curling into a mocking smile, "What am I, a pet? I didn't know you were into that Garrus. Something I'm forgetting?"

He hummed softly and nuzzled her neck, "Too much? How about this then," He reached down and slipped a bracelet over her hand. Silver and blue, just like his armor. Just like his markings.

"What is it?"

"A mineral found in my home on Palaven. All the Vakarian females have one. My mother wore one the size of a small pyjak around her neck."

She arched her neck to give him more access to the tender spots under her chin. His mandibles tickled her as he talked and she had trouble focusing, "All the Vakarian females hmm?"

"Yes." His tongue licked her ear and she sighed.

"And how is this going to bring me home?"

He pulled back and took the bracelet off. On the inside was a small inscription - galactic coordinates. They were for the Citadel if she wasn't mistaken.

"If you get lost again, then I'll meet you here. Back at the beginning of it all."

She slipped it back on, her hand turning to grasp his. It would never be a perfect fit - three fingers and five - but it worked. Better than anything else ever had. Than anything ever would. Even without all her memories she knew that much.

"I love you Garrus Vakarian."

"Damn right."

* * *

Docking Bay D24. Her dock and her ship. There it was, the Normandy SR-2 shining softly in the artificial light of the wards. It took her breath away and for a moment Jane lost her self in the memories it evoked. Still fragmented, but she had names for the faces now.

Garrus left her at the dock. He had things to do with the Primarch and the Councilor. If he had known it was the Normandy, he probably would have stayed. He was a bad turian like that.

She didn't know how long she was going to be gone, but she would be back. She always came back to him.

There was a tightness in her back as she walked through the airlock. Familiar and heavy.

"_Welcome aboard the Normandy." _

_The sound of metal under her boots. The smell of recycled air and thermal clips. _

"_She's yours now."_

_Small and fast. The ability to go anywhere, anytime. She loved the freedom._

"_What do you mean they're refusing to let us leave? No. I'm taking the Normandy and I'm going to stop Saren. Screw that."_

There, in the CIC was the entire crew. Packed against the wall, down around the Galaxy map and by every terminal. All eyes on her, watching and waiting.

"Commander on deck." A load snap echoed through the silent room as every single officer saluted in perfect synchronicity.

At the front of the crowd was Admiral Anderson, and unsurprisingly, to his right was Joker and EDI. To his left was Ashley and Vega. She knew them with certainty. A certainty that was absent a few months ago.

"Welcome home Shepard," Anderson said, smiling brightly. Of course it would be him. He always believed in her.

Jane blinked and saluted back slowly. Her lips curled, but not shyly. No, it was devious, curious, ambitious, and confident. It was a smile that came naturally to her. Not to Jane Shepard of Mindoir, but to Commander Jane Shepard. She wasn't all there, but she would be eventually.

"Good to be back."

It really was.


End file.
